The City of Toronto has several complex, transformational, multi-stakeholder change projects needing the support of experienced, knowledgeable, and innovative senior change management consultants. We are currently looking for seasoned change management practitioners to play a key role in three specific projects.

As a Senior Change Management Consultant, you will focus on the people side of change, recommending and developing organizational change management strategies and plans and ensuring successful integration into project plans, in order to increase utilization, expedite adoption and minimize disruption and resistance in change initiatives.

Major Responsibilities:

Assessment, Analysis and Planning

• Develops and implements targeted and actionable change management strategies and plans that maximize leadership alignment and stakeholder/employee engagement, minimize employee and stakeholder resistance and are informed by internal/external drivers and corporate knowledge (e.g.  Change communication plans, stakeholder engagement strategies, etc.).
• Engages senior leaders to promote alignment and ensure appropriate sponsorship of initiatives to achieve successful and sustainable outcomes.
• Assesses organizational readiness, risks (internal and external) and potential impacts associated with change initiatives, identifies key risks, resistance and performance gaps and develops mitigation strategies to minimize negative effects.
• Identifies the impact of culture on change initiatives, designs approach and plans with awareness of these impacts and identifies aspects of culture requiring change in order to achieve project outcomes.
• Organizes, participates and conducts proof-of-concept initiatives and feasibility studies with client stakeholders that will assist in the determination of adopting new technologies, approaches and processes.
• Develops a measurement and benefit realization strategy and monitors achievement of performance outcomes.
• Develops an approach to embed/institutionalize the change to sustain the benefits achieved, including knowledge transfer, performance management, continuous improvement and other related practices.

Stakeholder Engagement, Change Communication and Learning

• Leads stakeholder management, including identification and analysis of key stakeholders, and the development of stakeholder engagement strategies.
• Assesses learning needs to determine scale, complexity and magnitude of learning and development needs, identifies the gaps and develops plans including resource requirements, budget needs and performance metrics.
• Develops comprehensive communication plans, develops, and is able to effectively deliver key messages for communication at all levels in partnership with organizational Communication leads.

Engages with Project Team

• Works collaboratively with project lead and team to integrate change management into project plans, supporting project steering committees and leading project work groups.
• Negotiates horizontal consensus and resolves conflict with senior leaders, project leads and varied stakeholders, influencing project outcomes from a non-hierarchical position.

Addresses Organizational Impacts and Constraints

• Advises on the need to engage Human Resource functions and provides support to the development of HR plans, and new or revised organization structures to support successful change implementation and sustainment.
• Identifies and recommends changes to policies/procedures that create barriers to successful change implementation or change capacity.

Key Qualifications:

We are looking for someone who has a passion for change management and is able to manage a broad range of responsibilities from providing high-level, strategic consulting and advice, to assessing, analyzing and developing plans, to actively engaging in the hands-on work of implementing, facilitating and training.

Our preferred candidates demonstrate:

• Extensive change management experience, preferably in public sector and unionized environments.
• Extensive knowledge of current change management methodologies, principles, practices, processes, tools and templates.
• Experience in the practical application of change management methods and strategy combined with a solid understanding of how people go through change and the overall change process.
• Comprehensive knowledge and understanding of change management, including complexity, culture, risk, readiness and other assessments, stakeholder identification, analysis and engagement, change communication planning, and training strategy development.
• Experience working at a strategic level, liaising with stakeholders to identify potential change impacts and ensure change plans are in place.
• Comfortable with making decisions, problem solving, building consensus, and influencing with all levels of management.
• Resourcefulness, ability to multitask, and strong consulting and relationship-building skills.
• Ability to communicate effectively, excellent written and verbal communication skills, including negotiation, influencing and presentation skills; Strong ability to facilitate small to large sized groups and discussions.
• Ability to establish, build and maintain collaborative relationships with various stakeholders for the purpose of meeting the corporate objectives.
• University Degree, Post-graduate certificate or diploma in Business Administration, Strategic Management, Organization Development, or related education.
• Formal change management and/or project management accreditation will be considered an asset.

Description of Projects:

1) Shared Services Information Technology (36 months)

The City and the City’s largest agencies are examining ways to reduce duplication in all Information Technology areas.  Although the end result of this project is still not finalized, this project will examine the consolidation of functions, the standardization of processes and policies, and end-to-end process redesign across organizations.  In addition to the City, this project involves the Toronto Transit Commission, Toronto Police Service, Toronto Public Library, Toronto Community Housing, Toronto Zoo, Toronto Parking Authority, and Exhibition Place.

Additional Key Qualifications

• Knowledge and experience on Project Management Standards (i.e. PMBOK, PRINCE). Knowledge of other principles and methodologies such as ITIL, is an asset
• Demonstrated experience on IT projects involving  IT Infrastructure, implementation of Commercial Off-the Shelf (COTS) applications (including Enterprise Applications such as ERP solutions) and migrating to Cloud solutions
• Experience with IT procurement of technology hardware, software and services (such as maintenance and support)

2) Purchasing Transformation (36 months)

The City is transforming its Purchasing and Materials Management Division through two major multi-year projects.  This includes implementing a new end to end eProcurement system and implementing a new organizational structure to the Division to incorporate category management and strategic sourcing.  These major multi-year projects will see the end-to-end redesign of processes affecting all Divisions within the City of Toronto organizations, and all employees that engage in the procurement process.  These projects are also a precursor for a further shared service project with City Agencies and Corporations.  This posting is for the implementation of category management and strategic sourcing project and will have connections with the eProcurement project.

Additional Key Qualifications

• Experience and knowledge of category management and strategic sourcing will be considered an asset

3) Enterprise Document and Records Management Solution (EDRMS) (12 months)

Transitioning from physical to electronic record keeping will introduce significant changes to how the City conducts its business and manages its information, ranging from changing processes and service models to the introduction of new technologies. The success of this transition is dependent on effective change management. The Change Management lead will develop and manage a change management plan that encompasses both capital-funded technology procurement and implementation and operational service delivery changes, coordinate business transformation efforts and training with business units seeking and relying on records management services, and communicate expected changes and their benefits to stakeholders

Qualified List Information:

• A list of qualified candidates will be established for the Senior Change Management Consultant position and will be in effect for 12 months from the date the list is created.  Qualified candidates on the list may be considered when filling future temporary vacancies in this position

Please note that all applicants are encouraged to provide a valid email address for communication purposes. Applicants may receive written correspondence regarding this job posting directly to the email address provided on their resume or to the one used to set-up their Candidate Profile if applying on TalentFlow. As an applicant, it is your responsibility to ensure that you check your email regularly.